Colosseum Fine Arts is a gallery, agency and publishing company based out of San Diego. Founder Floyd Elmore "kind of fell into" the large space on Broadway and 8th Street and has some interesting plans for its use.

Shannon Cottrell

"Even a group show of the magnitude to fill 7000 square feet is typically beyond the desire of most curators," he explains. "Major museums, like MOCA and LACMA will do shows that fill 7000 square feet, but they have an entire curatorial staff.

"What we would like to do are smaller exhibitions that are very well-developed and then the rest of the gallery acts as an ongoing group show."

The goal of the gallery is to juxtapose the work of up-and-coming contemporary artists with its collection of post-impressionist art, including pieces by Eugene Galien-Laloue and Edouard Cortes.

"These are pieces that are historically important for multiple reasons. Maybe because artists like Laloue and Cortes were so unbelievably prolific," says Elmore. "It's exciting to work with this because it's very different from contemporary art."

Shannon Cottrell

On the contemporary end, though, Colosseum has no shortage of provocative work. With the smell of wet paint still wafting through the air, the Colosseum team was filling the space with paintings, costume pieces and jewelry.